Another big day in the short history of Leadonites Basketball as the Ledbury club played it's first ever competitive home match, at any age level, in entertaining Spartans Basketball from North Worcestershire, at Ledbury Leisure Centre.

U15s head coach Ian Robb selected a club policy 12 players for this match with no fewer than four players making their YBL debut.

As with last week's match the opening minutes were scoreless as both sides struggled to hit and open shot before Josh Spriggs broke the deadlock in the third minute then added to his tally with two swished free throws. Spartans captain, Fin Brittongrey, scored the first of his team-high 22 points before George Robb and JJ Hobson pushed the Leadonites lead out to 8-2. Spriggs replied to another Brittongrey score to make it 10-4 before Leadonites profligacy in the front court allowed Spartans to run up a 14 points to 10 lead. A solitary free-throw from Leadonites captain Michael French was the only addition to see Leadonites trailing 11-16 at the end of the first quarter.

Despite baskets from Hobson, Spriggs, Robb and Finlay Chalkley the second quarter was a horror show of poor shooting and failures to adequately box out for rebounds and the Ledbury club found themselves on the wrong end of a 21-35 halt-time score line. The damage being done by Dearn (9pts), Brittongrey (6pts) and Brown (5pts)

Two free-throws from Chalkley and another two-shot from Spriggs reduced arrears early in the third quarter but momentum waned as Leadonites consistently failed to penetrate the Spartans zone defence and instead elected for long range shots without players in position to rebound and recycle possession. The saving grace was that Spartans were also failing to convert their chances to leave the end of quarter score at 27-41 to Spartans and a mountain to climb for Leadonites.

Ultimately the score differential was too great for Leadonites to haul back in and despite 14 last quarter points from Spriggs, on his way to a game high 24, with two-points apiece from Chalkley and French the 8 points from Dearn, playing the entire fourth quarter on 4 fouls, was enough to keep the visitor's noses comfortably ahead.

Wednesday, 27 September 2017

After last week's away win at Coventry Tornadoes in round 1 of the YBL's LTG Cup Leadonites start life in the regular season league with a home tie against fellow new to the league club Spartans Basketball.

Spartans Basketball Club is the result of a recent merger between two men's teams, Droitwich Spartans and Wyre Forest Flames of Kidderminster, that came about in April of this year. They now have youth teams ranging in age from U12s up to U17s with training sessions held at the Kidderminster Youth House and matches played at the LQ Arena in Stourport, Worcestershire.

The YBL have today issued this statement concerning the Lorna Tull Griffith Cup; a competition started this season as a joint Under 13s and Under 15s competition which was due to be based around a handicapped starting score from the third round onward.

From: Youth Basketball LeagueWe listened…Several club members have spoken to members of the YBL committee regarding last weekend’s Cup and Trophy games. Some coaches have been disheartened with regards to the games they have played. Therefore, to keep the players engaged, and not to lose them from your teams, the YBL Board have decided, to split the cup competitions into age appropriate competitions.We have tried to keep as many Round 2 fixtures the same for the home teams where possible. However, a few have moved to accommodate the change.Please take a moment to look at the new set of fixtures, which have already been published to the website.We will have more details for future rounds after October’s committee meeting.

Kind regardsYouth Basketball League C.I.C

As a result of the above Leadonites away tie at Worcester Wolves Blue U13s due to be played at the University of Worcester at 1pm on Sunday, 15th October has now been switched to a tie on the same date but at West Bromwich Albion FC's foundation basketball club, WBA D-Squad.

This was Leadonites Basketball's biggest match to date in its two and a bit year history with entry into the Youth Basketball league and straight into the Lorna Tull Griffiths Cup Round 1 with an away tie at the Coventry Sports and Leisure Centre.

Originally this was to be a Leadonites Basketball home match but due to the death of the Tornadoes coach's father Leadonites agreed to switch venues rather than postpone or cancel the fixture. Leadonites looked after the table duties whilst Tornadoes picked up the tab for the referees.

The final score

The detail of the match

It took until the fourth minute of the first quarter until either team scored with JJ Hobson sinking the first of his game high score 19 points. Tornadoes levelled the scores before Leadonites went on a scoring spree to dominate the remainder of the first quarter.

The second quarter was much the same with taking a 38-9 lead into half-time. Finlay Chalkley sustained a rolled ankle but was able to rejoin the match in the second half.

Zone defence and game time minutes for the Leadonites bench players saw Coventry claw back some of the deficit in the third.

Three big scoring bursts in the final quarter saw the Ledbury club win through and then off to Maccy-Dees for post match analysis and re-fuelling.

Sunday, 17 September 2017

With yesterday's appearance against Shrewsbury Storm U14s at Ledbury Leisure Centre, the under 13s team captain, Samuele Miccio, has become the first player to play in 50 matches for Leadonites Basketball. Congratulations Sami.

Leadonites Basketball were able to play their first ever full 40-minute home matches yesterday (Saturday, 16th September 2017) with two pre-season friendlies against Shrewsbury Storm.

CONTEXT: When reading the results it should be understood that Storm's youth programme is very new and is about two years behind that of Leadonites. Added to this, although this was Storm's U14 and U16s the reality is that each team contained players much younger as well. Each Storm team had fewer substitutes and this told, especially toward the end of the second match. However, in each game the Shrewsbury players kept pushing offensively and digging in on defence and never let their heads drop. With that sort of effort and attitude their coaches, Dave Cockerill and Kevin King have a good base to work with and the return matches will be much closer in scoreline, especially with the players that were unable to travel on this occasion.

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Match 1:

Leadonites U13s 41 Vs 22 Shrewsbury Storm U14s

(Q1: 9-3 / Q2: 14-4 / Q3: 10-8 / Q4: 8-7)

Points of Note:

Their were full club debuts for Elliot Bailey and Harry Unthank.

Ben Deards top scored with 14, followed by Adam Dudley with 12 and Samuele Miccio with 10 points.

Team captain Samuele Miccio became the first player to notch up 50 matches played for Leadonites. However, vice-captain and best mate, Joseph French is just behind him having made his 48th appearance in yesterday's match.

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Match 2:

Leadonites U15s 76 Vs 14 Shrewsbury Storm U16s

(Q1: 18-2 / Q2: 20-4 / Q3: 20-8 / Q4: 18-0)

Points of Note:
This result represented both a record number of points scored in one match and also a record margin of victory for a Leadonites team. However, please read 'CONTEXT' above.

Teo Calvo-Whitelegg, Joseph Fisher and Samuel Nicholls all made there full club debuts to Leadonites.

Top scorers were Teo Calvo-Whitelegg and Josh Spriggs, each with 18 points, with JJ Hobson getting 10 and Samuel Nicholls scoring 8. Each of the three main point guards, Finlay Chalkley, team captain Michael French and George Robb weighed in with 6 points apiece.

Finlay Chalkley made his 44th appearance for the club, putting him 3rd on the overall club appearances list.

The hard work that Coach Ian Robb, with the help of assistant Rich Davies, is starting to show now with all players showing understanding allied with attitude and effort.

Next week the U15s start life in the YBL when they travel to Coventry to play Coventry Tornadoes in the LGT Cup Round 1.

The following email was sent out to the parents of all players who train in the Thursday night JUNIORS and INTERS training sessions @ 23:02 on Thursday, 14th September 2017.

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Thursday Night Training

Hi

After some parents have raised concerns over safety and fairness regarding how we run the Thursday night training sessions for the Juniors followed by the Inters we will be reverting back to the Inters training from 8:30pm. This will be rather than the merged court use we have been running; it was an experiment but it hasn't worked as well as I had hoped it would.

To the parents of the Juniors I apologise for how sessions must have appeared and to the Inters players I apologise for cutting your training time back to 60 minutes.

Please note that I can do nothing with regard to the table tennis that has use of a quarter of the sports hall until 7:30pm, however, if some parents were able to help we could clear this area quicker for us to have full use of the court sooner.

Can I remind parents that extra training (at no additional cost) is available as follows...

- Year 10s can train with the Seniors late session on Tuesday night.

- Year 8s and Year 9s can train (half-court) on Wednesday nights

- Year 7s (and some Year 8s) can train with the Cubs early on Tuesday night.

Finally, to the parents of the Juniors players, please ask your sons not to recruit any more players for the Thursday night session. Although we still have space for more within our insurance cover the quality of training will suffer with more bodies on court and it will become difficult for me to find matches for everyone to play in.

If you have comments or additional concerns then please contact me.

Matt

(Dean, can you forward this onto anyone you can spot that I have missed from the Juniors or Inters)

Thursday, 14 September 2017

This from the YBL"U15 South league has been reduced to 5 teams, with the withdrawal of Bromsgrove Bears. However, we are working with a potential new team based in Sheldon, who may be able to take on the fixtures already in place. News on this will be updated over the weekend."Leadonites U15s were due to play a home match with Bromsgrove Bears on Saturday, 21st October with the away match not until Sunday, 26th November 2017.

Friday, 8 September 2017

Leadonites Basketball are pleased to announce our first sponsorship with Malvern company Keynetics Ltd having their company logo printed on this season's first choice jerseys as part of their social sponsorship.

A delegation from Keynetics' American parent company will be visiting them at their UK head office on Malvern Hills Science Park in October and it is hoped that managing director, Stuart Wheeler, will bring them along to watch one of our U15s YBL matches in Ledbury.

Thursday, 7 September 2017

Due to a family bereavement within their their coaching staff the Coventry Tornadoes U15s head coach has requested either a postponement or cancellation of the Round 1 tie that they were due to play in Ledbury against Leadonites Basketball U15s. The YBL Fixtures secretary has instead switched the tie to be played at the Coventry Sports and Leisure Centre on the same date with a 10:15am tip-off time.

In linked news the draw for the second round has now taken place and Leadonites will again be away with a short trip across the Malvern Hills to play Worcester Wolves Blues U13s on Sunday, 15th October with a 1:00pm tip-off time.

The LGT Cup is a competition based on handicaps that are determined from the first two rounds of the competition.

The following has been adapted from the YBL website...

The Lorna Tull Griffith Cup (LTG Cup) has been named after Coach Curtis Griffith's wife, from Yardley Defenders, who was loved by many and loved the sport of basketball. She would have loved the principles of the YBL and what the YBL is trying to achieve.

The LTG Cup was devised to give players in the U13 and U15 competitions some more exciting competitive games, on top of their regular season competitions. The first season starting in 2017/2018.

Monday, 4 September 2017

(Article Edited: 21:05, 17/09/2017 - To amend INTERS training session details)Put simply, it's a little complicated to start with, so keep up because here goes...Due to under-recruitment at certain age groups there are early season opportunities for some players to train twice a week in the midweek sessions. However, for most, this will only last until the end of October.

CUBS Training (U11s / Year 6 & U12s / Year 7)

(every Tuesday from 7:30 to 8:30pm - FULL COURT)

STARTS ---> Tuesday, 5th September 2017

Please arrive at 7:20 and be ready to start training at 7:30pm

This training session is short of players due to some year 7s training on a Thursday night. Also, we are awaiting the start of the new school year before starting a recruitment campaign for year 6 players from the local primary schools.

SENIORS Training (U17s / Years 10, 11 & 12)

(every Tuesday from 8:30 to 9:30pm - FULL COURT)

STARTS ---> Tuesday, 5th September 2017

Please arrive at 8:20 and be ready to start training at 8:30pm

Due to the current low returns from last season's U16s squad this seasons year 10s have been invited along to make best use of the full court.

TOTS Training(U10s / Years 4 & 5)

(selected Wednesdays from 6:30 to 7:15pm - HALF COURT)

STARTS ---> Wednesday, TBC October 2017

Please arrive at 6:20 and be ready to start training at 6:30pm

The start date for this session is yet to be decided. It will be run in batches of four or five weeks at a time and will be centred solely of skills (shooting, passing, rebounding and dribbling) and fun games/drills.

MISH-MOSH Training (U13s / Year 8 & U14s / Year 9)

(every Wednesday from 7:00 to 8:30pm - HALF COURT)

STARTS ---> Wednesday, 6th September 2017

Please arrive at 6:50 and be ready to start training at 7:00pm

This training session will be for year 8 and year 9 players (although some others will be invited if the coaches believe that they require additional skills training).

JUNIORS Training (U13s / Year 8)

(every Thursday from 7:30 to 8:30pm - FULL COURT)

STARTS ---> Thursday, 7th September 2017

Please arrive at 7:20 and be ready to start training at 7:30pm

There will be a number of year 7 players training in this session. This is because either they are part of the YBL U13s squad or otherwise unable to attend the Tuesday night Cubs training session. There may also be a few year 9 joining in to improve their basic skill levels before jumping into the later Inters session at 8pm.

Sunday, 3 September 2017

(Last updated: 07/09/2017)
Below is the known fixture list for Leadonites teams. To be added to this are matches to be played in Glozball CVLs and JBDA CVTs and Friendlies covering all age group teams from U11 up to and including the U17s.

LEADONITES
BASKETBALL FULL FIXTURE SCHEDULE

10:15

Saturday

23 September 2017

Coventry Tornadoes

v

Leadonites

YBL U15 LGT Cup

13:15

Saturday

30 September 2017

Leadonites

v

Spartans

YBL U15 South

10:00

Saturday

07 October 2017

Bournville Bears

v

Leadonites

YBL U15 South

13:15

SaturdaySunday

14 October 201715 October 2017

BlankWorcs Wolves Blue

v

Leadonites

YBL U15 LGT Cup

13:15

Saturday

21 October 2017

Leadonites

v

Bromsgrove Bears

YBL U15 South

13:15

Saturday

28 October 2017

Leadonites

v

Redditch Rockets

YBL U15 South

10:15

Saturday

04 November 2017

Frankley Falcons

v

Leadonites

YBL U13 South

13:15

Saturday

11 November 2017

Leadonites

v

Worcs Wolves Blue

YBL U13 South

Saturday

18 November 2017

Blank

16:00

Sunday

19 November 2017

Spartans

v

Leadonites

YBL U15 South

Saturday

25 November 2017

Blank

13:00

Sunday

26 November 2017

Bromsgrove Bears

v

Leadonites

YBL U15 South

Saturday

02 December 2017

Blank

13:15

09 December 2017

Leadonites

v

Redditch Rockets

YBL U13 South

Saturday

16 December 2017

Blank

Saturday

23 December 2017

Blank

Saturday

30 December 2017

Blank

Saturday

06 January 2018

Blank

Saturday

13 January 2018

Blank

11:00

Sunday

14 January 2018

Worcs Wolves Blue

v

Leadonites

YBL U13 South

Saturday

20 January 2018

Blank

Saturday

27 January 2018

Blank

13:15

Saturday

03 February 2018

Leadonites

v

Bournville Bears II

YBL U13 South

15:15

Saturday

03 February 2018

Leadonites

v

Bournville Bears

YBL U15 South

12:20

Saturday

10 February 2018

Bourneville Bears II

v

Leadonites

YBL U13 South

12:30

Saturday

17 February 2018

Frankley Falcons

v

Leadonites

YBL U15 South

13:15

Saturday

24 February 2018

Leadonites

v

Frankley Falcons

YBL U13 South

15:15

Saturday

24 February 2018

Leadonites

v

Frankley Falcons

YBL U15 South

10:45

Saturday

03 March 2018

Redditch Rockets

v

Leadonites

YBL U15 South

Saturday

10 March 2018

Blank

10:45

Saturday

17 March 2018

Redditch Rockets

v

Leadonites

YBL U13 South

POST SEASON

Second
Place Play-offs (U13s only)

TBC

Saturday

24 March 2018

Position 2 North

v

Position 2 South

YBL U13

TBC

Saturday

14 April 2018

Position 2 South

v

Position 2 East

YBL U13

TBC

Saturday

21 April 2018

Position 2 East

v

Position 2 North

YBL U13

Semi-finals
(all held at Nechells Wellbeing Centre)

10:00

Saturday

28 April 2018

Position 1 North

v

Position 1 East

YBL U13

10:00

Saturday

28 April 2018

Position 1 South

v

Winner 2nd Place
Play-offs

12:00

Saturday

28 April 2018

Position 1 North

v

Position 2 South

YBL U15

12:00

Saturday

28 April 2018

Position 1 South

v

Position 2 North

YBL U15

Finals
(all held at Nechells Wellbeing Centre)

11:00

Saturday

19 May 2018

Winner of T56

v

Winner of T57

YBL U13

13:00

Saturday

19 May 2018

Winner of F51

v

Winner of F52

YBL U15

KEY:

CVL = Central Venue League

CVT = Central Venue Tournament

Glozball = A CVL held at Gloucestershire College by Gloucester Saxons BC.

Leadonites Basketball U17s have been withdrawn from the YBL's WMFS Trophy competition due to the low numbers within that age group.

Of the eleven players that made up the 2016/17 U16s squad only three have actually re-signed with another two stating that they intend to do so. Five players, even with players stepping up from this season's U15s squad, is simply not enough to be able to give proper respect to a YBL match. Added to this the first match was due to be against Worcester Wolves U19s.

Head Coach, Matthew Chalkley, contacted the YBL Fixtures Secretary, James Robinson, during the week to withdraw the team from their competition.

This does not mean the end for this team but it does mean that new players need to be recruited ahead of entry into this coming season's Glozball CVL and any JBDA friendly matches that may be arranged. The Seniors squad re-building process has already started.

The Seniors weekly training session will be held at Ledbury Leisure Centre (at the JMHS sports hall) on Thursday evenings starting at 8:30pm and finishing at 9:30pm. As this is now a full-court session all year 10 players within the club have been invited to join and support their year 11 and 12 club-mates by attending this session.

"VOLUNTEERS aren't paid - not because they are worthless, but because they are priceless."

Sherry Anderson

Leadonites Basketball is a small club but it still takes a lot of time and effort to run and we are therefore always on the lookout for volunteer help.

So if you are a qualified coach or table official and want to get involved then please get in touch. If you are not currently qualified but willing to undertake training courses and are willing to commit your time to us then Leadonites will pay the relevant course fees.

We also need help in a number of other ways.

leadonitesbasketball@gmail.com

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